Duality will be the Death of FI

I had fun writing this one… taking a contrarian stance to all the fluff out there.  Haha.  Enjoy… 

“To separate oneself or one’s group – to say, “Oh, no, we are different” – is to set oneself against wholeness.  To separate ourselves from the whole is to cut our options and erect the walls of our own prison.  When we create duality in our thoughts and lives, we have created opposition.” 

– Joseph Campbell 

Duality will be the death of FI. 

I can’t state it more clearly than that. 

I’ve seen it.  The writing is on the walls. 

It sounds ominous… might be a little dark and over dramatic, but I believe it.  It might not happen soon, but it will eventually, as with everything in this world.  Whether it’s a thought, an idea, a movement, or a life… all things must end. 

I don’t know what the underlying reason is, why people like to judge so much.  Separate, divide and label. 

Maybe fear, maybe pride, maybe envy. 

Or why is it that we so often see all that we don’t have rather than all that we do?  Is this because of capitalistic marketing, or are we internally programmed this way? 

What counterbalance spins the web of avarice, greed and gluttony?  Is it a reaction?  Is it a part of us? 

Regardless of the cause, I am concerned on how the FI movement is progressing.  The larger it is becoming, the more separation I see. 

And this is coming from me, Q-FI, I’m not a player in the industry/segment/movement, whatever the fuck you want to call it.  I don’t even have a voice, which gives me an advantage.  I can talk about topics more popular blogs might not be comfortable addressing.  There’s no high-fivers drinking the cool aid telling me how great I am.  I’m not sucked into the we’re all the same vortex of opinion invincibility.  You get the drift… 

But I do observe, and what I’m seeing is troubling. 

Financial independence is being cannibalized from within. 

There seems to be this pervasive maverick FI attitude of us versus the world.  If you want to think that, if that helps your swagger – go for it. 

But it leads to a problem, and that problem as always, is perception.  People in FI seem to think that they are separate from the mainstream workforce.  It’s almost as if they need this separation, crave this separation to uphold their identity. 

Yet the truth is they are not separate, everyone is the same, living their lives in the world.  We are all connected.  FI shouldn’t be used as a divider but as a means to get back to the roots of life and celebrate wholeness.  There is no point to create the unnecessary friction of duality. 

Even within the FI community there are so many unnecessary, trivial labels: Lean/Fat FIRE, Fast/Slow FI, low income vs high income, educated vs uneducated, etc.  Who gives a fuck?  I read every day online petty arguments about bloggers trying to defend what new term they coined, or section of FI they are practicing, and deriding others if they didn’t give them #hashtag credit for it. 

What the fuck is this shit all about? 

Are we moving down the it’s all about me road… how do I monetize everything?  Which blog/podcast has the greater reach, the louder voice?  Has FI already become a marketing dream?  An affiliate link heaven?  Is this the fastest growing personal finance industry darling? 

In the chase to the top, in the vision to spread the ‘good word’ of FI, have the founders changed into what they preached so wholeheartedly against? 

That question is up for you to decide, but whether people want to admit it or not, there is an alarming lack of humility in the FI universe that boils down to old fashioned judgment. 

And this is why I believe in quiet financial independence.  Wholeness.  Fuck the labels and let’s connect over our commonalities instead of fearing our differences. 

It’s hard to realize in the moment, when we are being self-righteous. 

“Financial Independence is fundamentally right.” 

I cringed at the words. 

I shouldn’t let it bother me, but it did.  It really did. 

I felt something stir deep inside me that I hadn’t felt in a while.  The feeling lingered like the smell of Sulphur after an extinguished candle.  It didn’t sit right.  Didn’t feel right. 

Then I pegged it:  self-righteousness.  Man do I hate self-righteousness. 

I like the podcast I heard this on, I really do.  They’re good guys with a great message (most of the time), but there’s one thing that really bothers me, and that’s judgment. 

I do it.  We all do it.  It’s a hard trap to evade. 

But when you start slanging out absolutes, you’re walking a fine line and heading down a slippery slope that I don’t want to be on. 

Financial independence is fundamentally right.  You are better.  You are smatter. 

I hear this all the time in the FI community and I try to let it slide.  Because it’s all bullshit.  You aren’t better.  You aren’t smarter.  And you sure as fuck aren’t right. 

What you are, is making a choice. 

Making claims that something is ‘fundamentally right’ is eliminating a person’s choice from the conversation.  You’re telling them that you know what is best for them.  You’re telling them that what I believe is right, and what you believe is wrong.  Because there is only one unflawed version, and that version is mine. 

Is this the message that we really want to be conveying? 

Duality doesn’t have to be the death of FI.  But I’m not sure the tiger will be able to stop chasing its tail. 

There comes a point when you believe something so badly that you lose touch with reality.  You’re surrounded by so much like-minded thinking that you forget there are contrasting viewpoints in the world, all of which have just as likely a chance as being correct as your own. 

Because the ultimate freedom is choice.  You get to choose what is right or wrong for you, and only you. 

So let’s open up our ears and minds, and remember that we are not different.  There is no separation and we are all in this together.  Because when you speak in tongues of absolutes and ultimatums, you have become the same as that which you so strongly argue against. 

And we can leave this community better off than we found it.  I know it. 

Sometimes the way a message is communicated can be just as important as the message itself.  And the message isn’t that pursuing FI separates you.  It’s that pursuing FI can lead to wholeness. 

So reach out, take a hand and stop building the walls to our own prison, before it’s too late. 

-Q-FI